I've always thought, if he were alive, that question was asked early on, it wouldn't have been appropriate to release that information. So Q just says no, they really had no choice.
Expanding on your hypothesis I'd say if we received a definite "yes" it's possible it could have exposed the element of suprise that was being saved for the finally. My only reservation on that is the definitive answer, as I commented above it'd be more questionable if the Q team left the response ambiguous or skirted the question all together.
I've always thought, if he were alive, that question was asked early on, it wouldn't have been appropriate to release that information. So Q just says no, they really had no choice.
Expanding on your hypothesis I'd say if we received a definite "yes" it's possible it could have exposed the element of suprise that was being saved for the finally. My only reservation on that is the definitive answer, as I commented above it'd be more questionable if the Q team left the response ambiguous or skirted the question all together.